Antiblastic and antifungal agents have recently been used for the purpose of attaining clean, comfortable and healthy surroundings or for the purpose of inhibiting resources and articles from being deteriorated by microorganisms, and therefore have held an extremely important position in various articles and fields, for example, textiles, timbers, building materials, leathers, adhesives, metal working lubricants, rubbers, plastics, films, paper-pulp industry, cooling water, high-technology industry, electrical machinery and apparatus, optical instruments, air conditioners, stockbreeding, fishery, agriculture, forestry, drugs, agricultural chemicals, water, cosmetics, toiletries, sanitary goods, preservation of food, hospitals, homes for the aged, public institutions, household goods, sporting goods, school supplies, and toys.
Further, such antiblastic and antifungal agents have recently been required not only to be applicable to various fields as described above but also to be efficacious against various kinds of microorganisms. For example, it is expected to develop an antiblastic and antifungal agent capable of inhibiting the growth of all 57 kinds of microorganisms found in general architecture which were recognized by International Bio-Deterioration Symposium (Philadelphia, U.S.A.) in 1985 (at the sixth meeting held at Emanuel College, U.K.). Further, it is also expected to develop antiblastic, antifungal and antialgal agents capable of inhibiting the growth of not only eumycetes and bacteria but also algae.
In general, various inorganic metal compounds, organometallic compounds, organic compounds and natural products which have been used as antiblastic and antifungal agents each exhibit an inhibitory activity against several to ten-odd kinds of microorganisms. However, there has not been found any combination of two or more of these compounds which inhibits additional kinds of microorganisms beyond their respective inhibitory powers. Further, there were even cases wherein a combination of two or more of the above compounds only inhibited fewer kinds of microorganisms than the sum of the kinds of microorganisms which the compounds could inhibit individually.
Under these circumstances, in JP-A 8-92012, an antimicrobial composition was developed, which comprises a nitrile antimicrobial agent, a pyridine antimicrobial agent, a haloalkylthio antimicrobial agent, an organoiodine antimicrobial agent and a thiazole antimicrobial agent as the active ingredients and exhibits excellent antibacterial, antifungal and antialgal activities by virtue of the additivity and synergism of these agents. However, even this antimicrobial composition was not sufficiently satisfactory in its effect as an antimicrobial agent, such as the kinds of fungi which can be inhibited, of expression of antimicrobial power and persistency thereof, and other characteristics for antimicrobial agents, and in the stability of the composition in itself, and so on.